


Once You Knew a Boy and You Named Him Lover

by Siguna



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character "death", Drama, F/M, Memory Loss, Natasha has emotions deal with it, Past Lives, Psychological Trauma, Red Room, Romance, unintentional domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 06:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siguna/pseuds/Siguna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That was the night she called herself Widow, though if her heart wept her eyes did not. She made her escape from the Red Room before they could get to her and she cut down anyone in her path, cold and swift and mechanical as a once-upon-a-memory steel arm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once You Knew a Boy and You Named Him Lover

**Author's Note:**

> This is my version of an in-MCU Natasha/Bucky story, borrowing stuff from the comics while not really keeping to comics canon. 
> 
> I'm the farthest thing from a medical expert so if the medical sci-fi is horribly unrealistic, my apologies and I hope that it doesn't detract from the story. 
> 
> This fic would not exist if it weren't for [dfotw](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dfotw/pseuds/dfotw), who made me want to write this pairing <3
> 
> The title is a genderbent lyric from A Perfect Sonnet by Bright Eyes, which is a favorite song of mine and probably subconsciously influences a lot of what I write. You can listen to it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXYM6-X8c3o) and/or read the lyrics [here](http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/bright_eyes/a_perfect_sonnet.html)

“Nat, you okay?”  
   
Clint’s voice is coming from somewhere to her left. Natasha presses her fingertips to her forehead, wills the throbbing to stop. “I’m fine. You?” She looks down at him and he nods faintly, chin slumped into his collar. “I will be.” She helps him up and he takes a few steps, walking off the hit he’s taken to his hip.  
   
Coulson strolls in, glances at the array of unconscious bodies scattered around them and hands Natasha a photo.  
   
She looks at it and the room begins to spin.  
   
“What’s this?” Clint asks, leaning in to look.

"Finally got a proper visual on the target,” says Coulson. “Since we, uh. Got him into custody. He’s already on SHIELD premises.”

“Any intel?”

“Winter Soldier is his codename or something, and we’re reading Red Room all over him – his gear, his skillset, even his combat suit.”

“Red Room,” Clint repeats. “As in, KGB? As in, the KGB that doesn’t exist anymore?”  
   
“Or so we thought,” and Coulson looks at Natasha.  
   
The photo crumples hard in her hand. “What is this,” she says, calm, acid.  
   
Coulson nods, as if confirming a suspicion. “So you knew him.”  
   
_Knew_ him. What a way to put it. That was back when she was Natalia and her existence was wrapped in nothing but the dank darkness of the Red Room and _him_ , and he had only a codename to offer her, but would stay up nights on the range to fight her until her blows could make it past the steel and speed of his block, and then his bionic arm wrapped her to his chest instead, and she lay pressed against him in his tiny bunk with her legs between his and his mouth on her brow while he tried and tried to kiss smooth the knotted mess of it and his own furrowed deeper, because the stutter of their hearts was the only thing in the world that they knew.  
   
She called him Soldier and love and home, and then they clawed him out of her arms. They strapped him into a room and chained back his arm and pushed needles into his head because she wasn’t supposed to be inside it, because he wasn’t supposed to retain memory after they’d washed everything out but still he cried _Talia_ and their needles killed him before they could wash her out too.  
   
That was the night she called herself Widow, though if her heart wept her eyes did not. She made her escape from the Red Room before they could get to her and she cut down anyone in her path, cold and swift and mechanical as a once-upon-a-memory steel arm. And she stumbled onto the world, and the world onto her.  
   
Clint tells her, sometimes, that they’ve all done things they regret. He talks about clouded judgment and she shakes her head, because it wasn’t that. She tells him she was numb, uncaring over who she killed and who for after she left the Red Room. It was what she’d been trained for, all her life – she was nine when they took her. But she’s doing things right, now, and Clint says that’s what matters, and what she doesn’t tell him about is her return to the Red Room and the wipeout mission that she doesn’t regret.  
   
And Clint is so lovely, near more than she can bear, because he sees the ache behind her heart when no one else does and doesn’t ask why it’s there, and gets into her bed when she wants him and doesn’t ask anything of her, and puts his mouth on hers and fills it with sweet warmth and she can dig into his tousled hair and feel less bereft and less cold.  
   
He comes up behind her now as she stares down at the photo, and his fingertips find hers, soft and nudging. She supposes he’s guessed what the Soldier was to her.  
   
She blinks off the threat of a tear and looks at Coulson. “I watched him die.”  
   
Coulson starts to move; she and Clint follow. “Seems they had him in deep freeze,” he says distractedly. He’s listening close into his comm. “Steve, calm down. What – okay. Okay, listen, just meet us out front, transport is on its way.” They’re heading down stairs now and he glances back at Natasha. “Way you were all bio-technologically enhanced at the Red Room meant they could keep him on ice till they figured out how to revive him.”  
   
Natasha glances back at the photo still tight-gripped in her hand. “Enhanced,” she repeats, acid again. Because that’s really the term she would use to describe the chemicals and experimental treatments, the memory wiping and mind addling and psychological trauma beyond what any of them could bear. And he had it worse off than anyone. “I need to see him,” she says, and glances at Coulson, and he’s focused on his comm again, scowling now.  
   
“Coulson,” she says, raising her voice.  
   
He waves a palm at her, speaks into his comm. “I don’t care what you have to do, just get me those files.” They’re emerging from the building now, into the midst of a flurry of SHIELD vehicles and agents.  
   
Clint gets called away on his comm, leaving Natasha and Coulson there when Captain America flies at them, speaking in a rush. “Agent Coulson, I’m right about this, I’m telling you – ” and Natasha flicks up an eyebrow. “Right about what?” she asks Steve. Coulson sighs. “We’ll sort it out when we get there, can we – ”  
   
“Where is he now?” Steve demands.  
   
“He’s been taken to SHIELD headquarters, we have to –”  
   
“I need to see him,” Steve says adamantly, and Natasha’s eyes narrow at him. “Cap, you don’t know who we’re dealing with here.”  
  
“All due respect Natasha, I think I’m the only one who does.”  
   
“What is that supposed to mean?”  
   
“It means I need to see him, and before he gets blood-hounded by SHIELD.”  
   
“Right, I don’t know what you think is going on here? But I’m the one who needs to deal with this, and you need to stand down.”  
   
“ _You_ need to deal with it? And why is that?  
   
“I don’t have time to explain it to you.”  
   
“What could _you_ need to explain to _me_ about Bucky?”  
   
_“_ Who the hell is _Bucky?”_  
   
   
 “So wait,” Tony says to Natasha, still in his suit with the face-plate popped up, sitting across from her, Steve, Clint and Phil in the quinjet. “You knew the guy who attacked us? And Steve thinks he knew him? And Steve says he died in World War II?”  
   
“Believed to be killed in action, body never recovered,” Coulson clarifies. “If this is the same guy; we’re still cross matching against the files we got from the army.”  
   
“It’s him,” Steve says sullenly, staring out the window. He’s gone very quiet since Natasha explained about the Red Room, and the fact that Bucky – if this is the man he knew as Bucky – had had his memory wiped beyond self recognition, let alone being able to remember Steve.  
   
“And he was frozen for how long?” Tony continues.  
   
“He died – or I thought he did – in the Red Room several decades ago,” Natasha says, slightly dazed. It occurs to her only then that Tony doesn’t know about the Red Room or most of her past, which accounts for the look on his face.  
   
“So,” he says, “so you were – you’re like – _how_ old?”  
   
“Perks of being a lab rat for bio-technological enhancement treatment,” Natasha deadpans. She turns to Coulson. “I need to see him. What is SHIELD doing to him?”  
   
“SHIELD is currently struggling to keep him restrained and/or sedated for more than two minutes at a time,” Coulson says, rubbing at his temples. “He has, what, a steel arm?”  
   
“Bionic,” Natasha says. “It’s extremely powerful.” Here Steve turns to stare at her, and Tony’s eyes widen. “That’s, okay, I need to get a look at that,” Tony says, and glances impatiently at the cockpit. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”  
   
“Tell your goons not to hurt him,” Natasha says, still looking at Coulson, and he eyes her wearily. “Natasha, he attacked us.”  
   
“He’s confused.”  
   
“How would you know?”  
   
“I know what he’s been through.”  
   
“We need to know who he’s working for.”  
   
“He doesn’t know who he’s working for.”  
   
Coulson just looks at her helplessly.  
   
“I need to see him,” she repeats.  
   
   
She’s leaning lifelessly against a window when Clint abandons his attempt at not hovering and takes the seat next to hers, slipping a careful hand around her waist. He pulls her back from the window and she lets him. “What if they’ve done something terrible to him,” she says numbly. “Clint, what if he – if – ”  
   
“He doesn’t remember you?” Clint supplies, and she nods. “SHIELD can help,” he says, sounding almost confident. “Like they helped you.” But it’s so much worse for him, she wants to say, though Clint seems to understand that; but still he speaks with hope. “Whatever happens, we’ll be here for you.”  
   
If anything Clint does succeed in momentarily distracting her as she wonders, not for the first time, what she’s done to deserve him.  
   
   
SHIELD is in disarray when they arrive and are met by a harried Hill. She explains quickly that they’d finally thought they’d had the Soldier sedated and brought Bruce in to take a look, when he’d awoken suddenly and grabbed Bruce around the throat with his bionic arm, which had of course set off the Hulk. “So now Thor’s gone after the Hulk,” she sighs, “and Barnes is – ”  
   
“Barnes?” Steve and Coulson both interrupt her. “Steve was right,” Hill says, holding out the folder she’s carrying. Steve lets out a long breath, while Natasha stares as Coulson flips through the folder – stares at the contents of a forgotten life that the Soldier – James, was it? – didn’t know he had, right there between Coulson’s hands.  
   
Somewhere, something shatters.  
   
“Where is Barnes now?” Coulson asks, snapping the folder shut.  
   
“Room D-13,” Hill says, and they’re already moving. “We’ve resorted to Hulk-level restraints, Ward’s unit is trying to get them on him – ”  
   
And Natasha just feels sick, hearing that. She pushes past Coulson and Hill, with Steve at her heels, and pushes through the enormous swinging doors marked D-13. Clint plants himself in the doorway with one arm held out to bar anyone from following them in, the other ready on his firearm, and she skids forward into the harshly lit room  
   
and halts a few steps in, heart thudding painfully, eyes full of him him him  
   
and Steve locks arms with him holding him back saying _Bucky please it’s alright_ and the Soldier-James-Bucky- _God he has a name_ wrenches against Steve’s grip, snarling,  
   
_who the hell is Bucky_  
   
and Steve’s face crumbles while Natasha’s ribcage rattles, violent and Steve tells her to stay back but she hardly hears, pulls him away from Steve and he swings out at her and she blocks it and dropkicks him  
   
and he falls and stares up at her with sunken eyes, then staggers to his feet, saying _Natalia Talia darling love_  
   
she doesn’t move  
   
his steel arm crushes her to his chest, painfully familiar and she feels the tears come, silent and still  
   
he pushes his mouth to her hair brow temple jaw, presses his cheek to the hot heavy mass of her head, can’t seem to hold her tight enough, drops with her to his knees on the ground saying I thought they killed you she says I thought they killed you sorry I didn’t find you sorry I didn’t kill them all and what she needs is to hold him forever and forever  
   
   
Natasha doesn’t remember falling asleep, and when she wakes up she’s in a cot in a dark room. He’s in another beside her, strapped down at the wrists and ankles with thick, jutting restraints and she doesn’t want to think about what they’re made of. He’s asleep as well but covered in sweat, breathing hard. She’s about to go over to him when her eyes fall on the small table between them. There’s a pitcher of water on it and beside it, his file.  
   
Natasha picks it up and stares at the cover, blank but for a single printed line at the top: JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES, SGT.  
   
_James,_ she whispers, testing it on her tongue.  
   
“Nuh – Natalia?”  
   
She looks up as he’s just lifting his head, goes over to him. “You okay?” He nods a bit, or is he shaking? He looks at the file in her hands and she holds it out slowly, and he stares at the name before looking up at her. “What the – the blond fellow cuh – called me.” His voice is slow and breathy.  
   
“He was your friend before the Red Room,” she says softly. He catches her by the wrist, making her drop the file, and his arms are shaking but he pulls himself up, as far as he can against the restraints. “Natalia, I – ” he starts, then falls back with a low grunt, breathing hard through tight teeth.  
   
“Hey,” she says, grabbing his arms and trying to steady him. “You’re going to be okay.”  
   
“In-injections,” he grits out. “Two – days since – _gargh –_ ”  
   
She pushes him back onto his back, holding his arms down and tries to keep her voice calm. “I know. You’re detoxing. It’ll take time to level out.”  
   
His chest rises and falls, hard and fast, and he shuts his eyes. “Just focus on breathing,” she says to him. “You’re fine. I’m right here.” She turns away from the bed, feeling around her ear for her missing comm unit.  
   
A steel grip closes around her wrist. “I am fine,” he agrees, voice hoarse but steady, when she turns back to him. “Stay.”  
   
“I’m – right here,” Natasha repeats. She draws her hand away and goes to the door.  
   
Clint is there when she swings it open, still wearing yesterday’s field clothes, clutching his bow and slumped against the wall just off the door. She mutters a swear and he starts awake, one hand automatically going for his quiver before he’s even gotten a look around. When he spots Natasha he relaxes. “How is he?”  
   
“Not too good. He’s not used to going this long without the drugs in his system.”  
   
Clint gets up and leans into the room to take a look. “Coulson?” he says, putting a hand to his ear. “Yeah, they’re both up. Barnes is going into detox. No, better not, we don’t want to overwhelm him. Nat and I can handle it?” He looks at her and she nods. “I’ll keep you posted.”  
   
She lets Clint check the Soldier – James’s? – restraints and they do what they can until he falls back to sleep. She huddles onto the other cot and watches him, sweating, gasping in his sleep. Clint sits down beside her. It doesn’t seem like too long ago that she was strapping Clint into a chair, saying the same things to him –  
   
_You’ve got to level out, that's gonna take time._  
   
_You don't understand. Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Take you out and stuff something else in? You know what it's like to be unmade?_  
   
_You know that I do._  
   
“I shouldn’t have said that, that time,” Clint says, breaking the silence. Natasha continues to stare  at James. “Said what?”  
   
“Said you didn’t understand? That time. When I was going through this, after Loki.” He hunches his shoulders up into a shrug. “You must have had it worse when you got outta there. He has it a lot worse.”  
   
“The important thing is he’s safe now,” is all Natasha says.  
   
“Whoever sent him’ll be looking for him,” Clint points out.  
   
“Not if we find them first,” she says, turning to him. He meets her gaze with searching eyes. “Nat, can I ask you something?” And that’s unlike him, but she pauses for only a second. “Yes.”  
   
“You’ve always said, ‘love is for children’.”  
   
She pauses again, and then looks away, at James. “In my youth I loved him, and they killed him because of it.” Her brow tightens low over her eyes. “After that it just seemed pointless.”  
   
Clint’s hand brushes against hers. “Decades passed, Nat. You couldn’t love again for decades?”  
   
She shakes her head, eyes still on James. “I’m sorry, Clint. I can’t make you understand.” Clint is silent for a while, then he follows her gaze. “And now?”  
   
“Now – he’s back,” she says simply. She doesn’t know how else to explain it.  
   
“Okay,” Clint says.  
   
He gets called away not long after that and Natasha stays curled up in her cot, watching the man asleep across from her. It’s hours before his eyelids slowly lift and he’s gazing drowsily back at her, and what he says, voice harsh and rasping, is, “Bucky, really?”  
   
“Apparently you used to be someone who let people call him that,” Natasha sighs, and his mouth strains into a smile. “James,” she says then, softer, and it’s amazing just to be able to call him by a name, _his_ name. She gets up and goes over to slide onto the edge of his cot. “We’re going to be okay.” His pale, gruff, sweat-streaked face is so unbearably beautiful that it hurts to look. He sits up and she strokes back his hair, which falls around his face as long as hers now, and he gazes at her with all the trust of a person who’s never had anyone else to trust, or love, or feel safe with, or even look at him with kindness, and it could break her heart all over again.  
   
“I thought you were dead,” he says. “I didn’t remember much, but I remember that night.” Natasha is quiet, reaching over to undo the restraints around his wrists. “I remember your voice, screaming for me,” he goes on. He’s still breathing a little hard, staring at her and she stares down at his hands. “And then it was over – and then it wasn’t. And they told me how long I’d been out for and I was sure you were dead, that they would have killed you right after they killed me, and that they didn’t think I even remembered. And they got back into my head and sometimes I didn’t remember.”  
   
“What did they do to you?” she asks, voice low and trying to be steady. He shakes his head. “Whatever it took to keep me following orders.”  
   
“You’re safe here,” she promises. “I’m sorry.”  
   
“Talia. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”  
   
She shakes her head. “I thought I’d killed them all. I ran away after what they did to you, before they could get to me, and then I came back one day to wipe them out. But I didn’t know they’d frozen you. I didn’t find you, I didn’t – ”  
   
“Stop,” he cuts her off. “You couldn’t have known.” And that’s sweet of him, but she’s steeled. “We’re going to find them and take them out and _end_ this.”  
   
He reaches out, and then she’s lost in the palms of his hands and the ache of a lifetime buried in the depths of his mouth.  
   
When Clint clears his throat loudly from the doorway Natasha pulls back and James drops his forehead onto her shoulder. “Hey,” she says to Clint. “Fury at the end of his rope?”  
   
“Kinda, yeah?” Clint nods at James. “Sergeant Barnes.”  
   
 “I don’t know about that,” James says. He drags his head up and gets to his feet, slowly. “So is it time for this SHIELD of yours to poke and prod at me?”  
   
“We’d like to ask you to submit to questioning and testing,” Clint says, straightforward. “We understand you’ve been the victim of chemical treatment resulting in memory loss, psychological trauma – we can help with that.”  
   
“They can,” Natasha says to him. To Clint she adds, “No funny business and I stay with him.”  
   
“Talk to Fury,” Clint says. “Come on, we really need to get going.”  
   
Natasha takes James’s hand and looks up at him, and he looks skeptical but follows because it’s her.   
   
The motion makes him dizzy but he shakes off Clint’s offer of help and walks steadily on his own, but for a hand linked with Natasha’s, breathing in short gasps. The rest of the Avengers are waiting for them along with Hill, Coulson and Fury when they get there. Steve looks up when they walk in, and makes as if to say something, but ends up just slumping back into his seat and staring helplessly. James looks at him and frowns.  
   
“Finally,” Fury gripes, throwing up his hands. “Agent Romanov, I understand the delicacy of the situation but you of all people should understand that we have protocol to follow and how important it is that we follow it. He could be at worst a spy, at best being tracked, or – ”  
   
“Tracked, really,” Natasha cuts in. “As if you didn’t sweep him the second you laid hands on him.” James just stares calmly at Fury.  
   
“Doesn’t that solve everything,” Fury says, staring back. “Isn’t he also supposed to be mind-controlled?”  
   
“It’s not mind-control, it’s chemically-induced psychological manipulation that works through strictly controlled dosage,” Natasha says, as one stating the obvious. “What did you think, we’ve been off strolling through meadows? He’s going through heavy detox.”  
   
“Just get him to an examination room. Stark, get in there. Doctor Banner – I’ll leave the choice up to you, but we could use your expertise on this one.”  
   
James seems to recognize Bruce and gruffly offers an apology for the day before. “Strange place, strange people trying to mess with you,” Bruce shrugs him off. “Sorry I went all green on you.”  
   
“It’s okay now,” Natasha says to Bruce, and he nods.  
   
   
They strap James into a hospital bed and hook him up to monitors and machines, and Natasha sits by the bed and he doesn’t take his eyes off of her. She talks to him about SHIELD and the Avengers, with Tony and Bruce chipping in to the conversation as they work, aided by some jittery SHIELD personnel. James asks about Steve and they tell him what they know about before he was frozen, which isn’t overly much, and James can’t remember and grimaces and keeps asking.  
   
They run scans on his bionic arm and Tony can’t stop muttering under his breath. “I need my workshop, I need Jarvis,” he pouts, flicking through readings on a screen. “So, arm is controlled through cybernetic brain implants, impressive impressive, and it has, okay, super strength and – an electromagnetic pulse?” He leaves the screen and goes back to study the arm itself, triggering a couple of releases on the metal panels that makes them pop up to reveal circuitry. “Damn, what else can it do?”  
   
“Enhanced reaction time, electric discharge, sensor blocking,” James counts off, shrugging.  
   
“Aaaand tracking device,” Tony says, pulling a small lump of metal out with his tweezers. “What? Is it active?” Natasha snaps.  
   
“Nope,” Tony says, setting it on the ground and unceremoniously crushing it underfoot. “SHIELD caught the active one before. This one was wired to set off a radio wave distress signal if anyone tried to tamper with his arm.”  
   
“You’re tampering with his arm, why didn’t it go off?”  
   
“Because I’m _good_ like that,” Tony huffs.  
   
“They’ll be looking for me, signal or not,” James says. “And even if the other tracker was shut down as soon as SHIELD got a hold of me, they’ll still have a general idea of the location.”  
   
“Not if we find them first,” Natasha says.  
   
“You really don’t know where their base is?” Tony asks, still fiddling in the arm circuitry. Something sparks and he hisses at it.  
   
“I was transported to and from missions in sealed planes and vehicles, picked up at checkpoints if need be. Never made my own way to or from base and never saw where we were going. Pretty sure they also drove extended routes to keep me from guessing.”  
   
“Well, SHIELD’ll be grilling you on that. I think we’re done here as soon as Bruce gets back with the brain scans, I can’t get into this properly without my workshop anyway. You need to stop by later. He’s moving in right?” The last line is directed to Natasha, and James looks at her with one eyebrow lifted.  
   
“The Avengers generally live in Tony’s tower,” she explains.  
                    
“Yeah, I’m crazy rich, in case no one mentioned that,” Tony says airily. “Nat has a suite, or I could give you guys your own floor, or whatever. I need you in my workshop though.”  
   
“So am I going to be an Avenger?” James asks wryly. Tony jabs a screwdriver in his direction. “Hey, they let _me_ in, and our friendly neighborhood rage monster here –” he waves at Bruce, who’s just come in, “ – if you ask me, you’d fit right in.”  
   
Even if mainly out of fascination with the arm, Natasha supposes it’s convenient that Tony appears to have taken a quick liking to James. Bruce seems to sympathize with him, Clint is always on her side, and according to him Thor’s sentiments are something along the lines of “The more the merrier”; which leaves Steve.  
   
But she doesn’t have time to mull over how Steve’ll be taking it before Fury, Hill and Coulson come marching in, Tony and Bruce having left, to conduct their interrogation. Hill actually tries to ask Natasha to leave them alone with James and Natasha just kind of stares at her like she’s suddenly grown a third eye, so they begin. James, hooked up to drips and breathing shallowly, rolls his eyes and tells them what they want to know.  
   
After SHIELD announces their willingness to keep him under their protection – Natasha’s terribly amused they act like that was up for debate – they outline a rehab and psyche therapy regimen for him that James and Natasha decide can be carried out from Stark Tower. Bruce offers to monitor his progress, Clint says he’ll do whatever he can to help and Tony says “Totally”; so Coulson takes two migraine pills and signs off on it.  
   
   
Natasha takes James home. The very idea is something neither of them so much as dared to think when they were together all those years ago, and now suddenly she’s leading him through the tower to her – _their_ – suite that is of an alien luxury to him, and he’s following her unaffectedly until they reach the bedroom, where he lies down and folds her into his limbs and they hold one another as close and tight in middle of the wide expanse of bed as if they were back in the darkness of a tiny bunk in a godforsaken Soviet facility.  
   
They stay that way until Jarvis begs their pardon to inform them that the rest of the guys are ordering Chinese. James is unconcerned with why the ceiling is talking to them and promptly asks for two of everything (Natasha’s pretty sure he doesn’t know what Chinese food even is) while she orders the lemon chicken and they go to join everyone else in the common room.  
   
And really, the best part of everything is watching James eat. He takes one look at the chopsticks, snorts and grabs a fork instead, then proceeds to consume the contents of fourteen cartons in little more than as many minutes. Tony and Clint immediately turn it into a contest between him and Thor while Bruce rolls his eyes and retreats with his egg fried rice and book to the far side of the room, and that’s when Natasha notices Steve is missing.  
   
No one misses her when she slips out and heads for Steve’s room. She knocks and there’s no answer. She pushes the door open gently, and what she sees is Steve sitting at his drawing table, hands hanging down at his sides and staring at the untouched pad in front of him.  
   
“Steve,” she says gently, laying a hand on his shoulder.  
   
“I thought he was dead,” Steve says, not looking up.  
   
“So did I.”  
   
“I blamed myself.”  
   
“So did I.”  
   
“And you and he were really close.” He turns to her, eyes huge and sorrowful. “I get that, I can see it, even if I don’t know what happened. But so were he and I, Nat. He was my dearest friend – he was all I had in the world.”  
   
“He was my world,” Natasha says. Steve is quiet, looking like he could cry. “You and I practically went through the same thing, losing him,” he says eventually. “But you’re the only one getting him back.”  
   
And there’s really nothing Natasha can say to that, because there’s not much in this world that fazes her but the idea of being in Steve’s place, of having James come back and not remember her, is something she can’t think about.  
   
“I don’t know what to say, Steve. I don’t even know what I would do if I were you.” She sits down at the edge of the table. “And I can’t tell you he’s going to get his old memories back, and I can’t tell you to try to be his friend anyway, and I can’t tell you I’m sorry that it’s me and not you he remembers.”  
   
“God, Natasha.” He shakes his head. “Look, I don’t expect you to be. I just.” He shrugs helplessly. Then he looks up. “Would you – do you think you could tell me about him? About what happened in that place? It’s like, he had this whole other life and I never knew.”  
   
“It wasn’t much of a life,” Natasha says. “But if you really want to know, yes, I can tell you. If you’ll tell me about the whole other life he had before, that _I_ don’t know about.”  
   
   
Timing has been a complete blur since James was brought into SHIELD custody and yet Natasha is keenly aware of the hour as she leaves Steve’s room and of the fast depleting seconds before she reaches her own, where there is a very awake, very shirtless James in her bed, who pulls her close and wraps himself around her with habitual urgency.  
   
“James,” she whispers, soft and slow, letting the name linger on her tongue, and wonders how she can explain the conflicted ache that comes with the way he holds her.  
   
“How – how is Steve,” he says carefully. She closes her eyes and exhales into his shoulder. “Steve – is – glad you’re back. But it’s hard for him, he doesn’t know exactly how – to pick things up with you? Because it’s been so long, and he just, he – ”  
   
James sighs, and she breaks off. “Look, I get that it’s been a while,” he says, leaning closer over her shoulder. “Time’s been stopped for me but for you I’m from another lifetime. I get that, Talia, I do, but don’t you _try_ to tell me I don’t still mean something you.”  
   
She draws back and looks up at him and the shake of his head is daring her to refute. “I’m not,” she says. “You do, and hey, calm down. James, you do, okay? But I don’t know that I can just go back to the way we were. Time’s passed. Things’ve changed.”  
   
“Yes, they’ve changed, because we’re not prisoners anymore, and not stealing time with one another from the darkness of a hiding place, nor am I dead, and nor are you –”  
   
“The same person, James, it’s been decades.”  
   
His lips hang apart and he stares, then the muscles on his face fall back into hard places and heat drips from his words. “You’re, what, tougher now? The Black Widow? I see the way these SHIELD people act when you’re there, you scare them. Even your own teammates, your _directors_ are careful around you. Should I be acting the same? Should I be afraid to get this close to you, afraid of the knife that I can feel on your hip? Is it that you’re too self-sufficient now to let yourself love me? Or too strong to condescend to admit that you do?” His non-bionic arm shakes on her body and he pulls them both back, sitting up. “The Black Widow, cold and merciless. Is that who you are, Natalia? _Natasha?_ Because I don’t see –”  
   
“No, you don’t,” she cuts him off, her voice low and controlled. “That I am the way I am because of _you_. That I am the Black Widow because you _died_ because I loved you. And didn’t have a minute to grieve because there was an entire KGB facility out for my life as soon as they ended yours, and it was _cold_ _and merciless_ that got me out of there, and got me to where I am now, so when I say things are different, James? It’s because I left everything behind that day. Because all I could hear in my head was your voice screaming my name before they silenced you, and I couldn’t keep hearing it. I had to let go of it all. I had to survive.”  
   
He’s silent, and she slides back down against the mattress, staring at the ceiling. Eventually he says, “Do you want me to stop using it? Your old name, I mean.”  
   
“God, no. You don’t know what it’s like to hear you say it again.” And she turns to him and he moves down to meet her, grasping her head in his hands. “Natalia, I do. Every time you call me by my own name.”  
   
He leans over her and she opens her mouth to let him in, and it’s short and hard and lovely and painful, and when he pulls away she sighs.  
   
He drops his forehead into her chest. She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses his hair and says nothing.   
   
   
“Bucko, workshop, stat, it’s important.” Tony’s face flicks onto the screen in the common room, where Natasha has been introducing James, Steve and Thor to Star Wars, cutting off Return of the Jedi. Thor huffs loudly. “You have interrupted the singing of the Ewoks, Stark.”  
   
“Also, don’t call me Bucko,” James says.  
   
“Whatever, Bionic Bucky. Just get down here, I think we got something.”  
   
James yawns. “You said that the last forty times.”  
   
“Wow, excuse me for trying to _help_ you?”  
   
“Movie’s almost done, Tony,” Natasha says from where she’s stretched out beside James on the couch, “let him see the ending, then he’ll go and see you before we start on the prequels.”  
   
“Luke and Leia are twins, Vader dies, the prequels suck balls. We done here?”  
   
“STARK!” Thor seethes, getting to his feet.  
   
“Now you’ve done it,” Steve sighs.  
   
“Have I not warned you about revealing spoilers?”  
   
“Kidding!” Tony says, “Ha, got you, of course they're not twins. That would be crazy, like if Snape was actually good or something.”  
   
Thor stares at him, perplexed. “But Snape _is_ good.”  
   
“Oh, you got to that part.”  
   
“Stark, I swear – _”_  
   
“Bucky, _get down here_.”  
   
James stretches back languidly, arms flexing up over his head. “I, uh, have an appointment? With the SHIELD therapist.”  
   
“You always blow off the therapist!”  
   
He exhales and his arms drop down from their stretch. “Fiiiiiine,” he whines, laboriously getting to his feet.  
   
“Natasha, you too,” Tony says, already turning away from the screen and starting to pull up holograms. That she’s not expecting, but she says nothing and follows James out of the room.  
   
It’s been about two weeks now, and other than Steve getting called in on a two-day op they haven’t seen any action. James – Steve can’t break the habit of calling him Bucky, which he says he doesn’t mind, and everyone else just picks it up, but to Natasha he is James – has just kind of slid into the routine of things with the team and it works out because they all function around each other anyway. So it’s okay that Natasha is up at a normal hour and has breakfast with Steve and Bruce while James wakes up late and wanders into the kitchen around when Tony and Thor are nursing their coffee and Clint is throwing things into at least six different frying pans. It’s okay, because Natasha will migrate over to roll her eyes at them and replace half the grease on James’s plate with a muffin, and mess up his bed-head even more, and he’ll grin up at her and say _hi_ and Tony will pretend to gag while Clint sighs wistfully because James has “that dark brooding thing going on and it’s so not fair.” They don’t catch the hesitation in the gasp of space between James’s palm and her waist or the question in his eyes when they meet hers each new morning, or the way Natasha’s chest threatens to burst whenever her gaze lingers on James after he’s turned away from her.  
   
But she loves that he alternates between calling her Natasha and Natalia, and the way he looks at dawn asleep under the soft filtering light, and that if she wakes him up early he only pretends to protest. Mostly they stay in bed when that happens, and touch and taste and talk, and Natasha doesn’t think she’ll ever be done getting reacquainted with him.  
   
It’s not always easy but it’s not always hard, and things are easy enough around the team. They have sparring sessions and watch movies and argue about what’s for dinner and repeatedly tell Tony that he’s not allowed anywhere near a stove, and Tony drags James down to his workshop to run tests, and James’s SHIELD-issued phone goes off and he tries to drown it in the nearest liquid (Tony’s coffee cup usually), because Tony gave him a Starkphone that is much cooler and he never wants to talk to SHIELD but apparently, SHIELD has indestructible phones.  
   
So when Natasha and James make their way down to Tony’s workshop now, it’s familiar enough that James knows right where Tony needs him and lets him and Bruce hook wires up to him unperturbed, while he jokes with Bruce about whether or not his bionic arm could beat the Hulk arm wrestling. Natasha can’t help but feel uneasy, though, because Tony usually can’t care less whether or not she’s there when he’s poking and prodding at James. She stays close, sifting through James’s hair with slow fingers and eyes Tony wearily.  
   
Tony is quieter than usual as he and Bruce drift back and forth, checking connections, recalibrating instruments, mumbling to each other and frowning at their monitors. Eventually – finally – Bruce lets out a long sigh, tossing his glasses off onto the counter. “We’re right about this, Tony.”  
   
“Of course we’re right about it, I was directly involved. But the risk, dammit." And he turns to Bruce, scowling.  
   
“That’s not up to us,” Bruce says.  
   
“What isn’t?” Natasha demands, about as impatient as she’s ever been. Bruce looks at Tony, who says, “What, me?” and Bruce nods. Tony rolls his eyes and turns back to James and Natasha.  
   
“So, as it turns out, we can actually reverse Bucky’s memory loss.”  
   
“ _What_ ,” James says. Natasha feels her heartbeat quicken slightly.  
   
“Well, no.” Tony says. “Not reverse, per se, more like undo, because the memories are still there, just repressed. But it’s tricky, because it’s tied to the cybernetic brain implant that controls his arm. Turns out? It does more than just control the arm.”  
   
“So what are you saying, exactly?” Natasha asks. “What’s the risk?”  
   
“If we attempt this,” Bruce says, “what we’ll be doing is releasing a control that the implant has over that sector of his brain, making it revert back to its prior state. So his memories will be… accessible, again. But the risk with that – how can I put this.” He pauses, raking a hand through his hair. “Basically, the sudden flooding back of his repressed memories could overwhelm the brain and his more recent memories could be compromised, either temporarily or permanently.”  
   
“How recent?” James asks, and Natasha swallows, hard. Bruce and Tony exchange glances. “Anything following the repression caused by the implant,” Bruce says softly.  
   
“So, his time at the Red Room,” Natasha says, “and me.” Bruce just looks apologetic. Tony turns away, pressing a hand to his face. “We can – you don’t have to decide now, we can run some more tests, maybe find a way to –”  
   
“I’m not doing it,” James says. He stands up, tearing wires off his body and takes Natasha by the hand. “Let’s go.”  
   
“James,” she hears herself say, pulling back. She feels lightheaded all of a sudden. “We need to talk about this.”  
   
“There’s nothing to talk about, Talia. I won’t do it.” He tugs her by the hand, drawing her up to him and they can both feel the throbbing of her chest at his side, but James only holds her closer and leads her out.  
   
They’re not by any means through with the issue. Natasha drifts dazedly after James and when they get back to the common room she breaks away from him, running a sleeved wrist across her stinging eyes. And when she looks up what she sees is Thor, Steve, and Clint having joined them, all staring from her to James, and she doesn’t understand why they look so sympathetic, and why Steve looks so broken, until she glances at the flatscreen that’s still displaying Tony’s workshop.  
   
   
The rise and fall of James’s chest underneath Natasha’s cheek that night is dearer to her than she could have imagined. He sighs, letting his hand fall out of her hair. “Natasha. Please, stop acting as if you’re about to lose me.”  
   
“I’m not,” she says quietly. “I’m fine. But James, listen to me.”  
   
“I’m not going to risk forgetting you. I won’t lose you. I can’t. You’re all I have, all I’ve ever had.”  
   
“But that’s not true though, is it?” She props herself up, folding her hands over his chest and leaning over them. “You had – a whole other life, James, that you don’t remember. A life outside of the nightmare that was the Red Room, and people you cared about. People like Steve, who grew up with you and shared a life with you before I ever did.”  
   
“I don’t _care_ about Steve,” James says exasperatedly. “I don’t, okay?” He brings his hands up to frame her face, and sighs. “Whatever life I had before, right now, as it is, there is no way I can value any of it over you. You have to understand that.”  
   
She closes her eyes, leaning her cheek into his palm. “I never want to lose you, James. But right now your identity is defined by two things: what you went through at the Red Room, and me. And I think you deserve to find yourself outside of that.”  
   
He falls silent, and Natasha keeps waiting for him to say something but he doesn’t. “Don’t take that the wrong way,” she says, looking up at him.  
   
“I’m. I’m not, just. Thinking that you’re different now, than before.”  
   
“I was a child.” The words come out before she can think twice, and she doesn’t quite regret them. His brow creases slightly. “I didn’t fall in love with a child, Talia.”  
   
She slips her hands out from under her chin and slides back into the curve of his arm. “Well, that was a long time ago,” she says. “I’ve grown into myself since then.” She closes her eyes. “You need to do the same.”  
   
   
James is up before her the next morning, and everyone is tensed throughout the day. Steve almost tries to say something once or twice but James glares him back into silence, leaving him looking even more flustered and upset than before. James and Natasha alternate between moving in patterns around one another and having staring matches that neither of them quite loses.  
   
At night they both kind of drift into bed and cold shoulder one another for a while, before Natasha sighs and rolls over to him. He grudgingly moves his arm to accommodate her. She closes her eyes.  
   
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he says after a while.  
   
“No,” she hums, halfway asleep.  
   
He considers this, then brings his metallic fingers up to brush at her hair and closes his eyes too.  
   
   
When the attack comes, no one is expecting it.  
   
It’s not long after they’ve all been shaken up by Tony’s revelation about James’s memories but they’re in the field, having just completed their first routine op with James in tow, and everyone’s moving a little easier for it. They’re waiting for evac when the ambush happens, and it doesn’t take long for all of them to realize that the squad of twenty, more? – is here for James, and Steve tries to tell him to get on the evac when it comes while the rest of them hold the attackers off. James’s response is to toss the guy his arm has just finished bludgeoning at Steve.  
   
James fights with impatience, tearing through man after man and leaving a string of twitching bodies in his wake, looking more than anything irritated at having been thus disturbed. But they descend on him hard and heavy, appearing faster than the team can take them down. Natasha throws two men off her as they try to drag her back from James and elbows a third in the face as he comes up behind her, only to be thwarted again as more men appear. She can’t tell where they’re coming from, only that they’re trying to put themselves between James and the rest of the team. Somewhere Steve yells into his comm about backup; arrows whizz by her as Clint picks off men at either side of her; the ring and slam of Thor’s hammer punctuated by Tony’s repulsor blasts fills her ears and then Bruce comes lumbering into the clearing in the form of a beautiful green rage monster, sweeps half a dozen men back with a swing of his arm and draws most of the attention to himself. Natasha knocks out two more men on her way to reach James and it’s only then that she realizes he’s locked in combat with someone who stands apart from the rest, their obvious leader and one whose face she knows, who is grappling now for James’s arm and twisting it back the way she last watched him do before he chained it to a wall and so he could put James to his death. The one who got away from her on the wipeout mission that was her last visit to the Red Room, all those decades ago; so he’d taken his own medicine. She wonders, briefly, if his mind had bled and blistered on the treatment as his test-subjects’ had, before launching herself at the two of them.  
   
The heavy crash of a metal arm crushes against the side of her head and she’s sent reeling back, and the next thing she sees is James bent double on his knees, clutching at the bare gash of his shoulder socket. His bionic arm, completely detached, is in the other man’s clutches now and he’s wielding it as a weapon. She gets dazedly to her feet as he pins James to the ground, aiming the arm at his neck, but before she can get any further James pushes his head up and lets out a fierce cry, and the arm suddenly breaks itself out of the man’s grasp. She stands dumbfounded as it turns on him, its steel fingers wrapping around his neck and they all watch as it squeezes the life from him.  
   
As soon as he goes limp the arm drops motionless to the ground and James collapses as well. Natasha is on the ground at his side in an instant. He’s not moving, and bleeding from his nose and head as well as ravaged shoulder socket. Steve, Clint and Tony crowd in around her; somewhere in the background Thor and Hulk are taking down the last few men just as the SHIELD agents start to pour in.  
   
“James,” Natasha says hoarsely, her voice cracking, trying to feel for a pulse. Arms belonging to SHIELD medics start to appear around her and they haul him onto a stretcher. Someone tries to pull her away; Clint sticks them with an arrow. “Nat, he’s alive,” Tony says, running readings from his suit. She turns to him, and the medics hurriedly roll off with the stretcher. “What the hell was that?”  
   
“Cybernetic brain implant,” Tony and Bruce say together. Bruce is just sprinting up to them, having shrunk down and grabbed a pair of pants from a SHIELD agent. She stares from one to the other. “It’s amazing, really,” Tony says, “the implant, Nat, the implant in his head? It controls the arm, but I never thought…”  
   
“He can control it remotely,” Bruce says, unable to hide a twinge of excitement from his voice although his face is grave, “when it’s detached from him. I don’t think he knew he could do it, or that the guy he was fighting did, and he clearly knew something about the arm seeing as he knew how to detach it and use it as a weapon.”  
   
“What about James?” Natasha demands, turning to look for the medics. Swarms of darting SHIELD agents and vehicles swim before her vision and she can’t make out one from another. A pair of metal gauntlets hook under her arms and she closes her eyes as the sound of repulsor jets fills her ears, only opening them once Tony sets her down on the landing ramp of the quinjet marked PARAMEDIC just as it’s taking off.  
   
   
Tony stays with her, and the rest of the team meets them at the SHIELD base. James isn’t in critical condition, but Tony won’t say anything more than that until and he and Bruce have a chance to consult. Eventually they face the team together.  
   
“The exertion James had to put himself through to gain control of his detached arm put way too much pressure on the part of his mind that housed the implant,” Bruce says, not looking up from his clipboard. “The implant is partially dislodged and we don’t know what the repercussions will be.” He looks up at Natasha, then at Steve and the rest of them then quickly back down. “You remember what we said about the implant affecting his memories,” he finishes quietly.  
   
Natasha takes in a sharp breath of air and stares numbly ahead. Steve makes as if to go to her but hangs back, uncertain. “He’s being prepped for surgery right now,” Tony says softly. “The new arm that Bruce and I began developing when he moved in is stable enough for us to replace his old one with now, and there’s an advanced implant that will go into a different part of his brain. That you don’t need to be worried about – the tricky part will be removing the old implant. After that it’s a matter of waiting for him to regain consciousness…” he trails off, and Steve finishes, “And then seeing what he remembers.”  
   
“Pretty much,” Tony says. He looks at Bruce and Bruce runs an agitated hand through his hair. “We better scrub in. See you on the other side.” He reaches for Natasha and brushes her hand before following Tony out of the waiting room.  
   
The surgery seems to last years. Natasha stays unmoving in a chair, ears numb to Steve’s suggestions that she get some rest even as he has no intention of moving from there himself. Clint periodically materializes with food and coffee and she accepts some of the latter. She’s vaguely aware of Thor’s presence at some point, and of a voice that might be Coulson’s.  
   
When a pair of worn brown loafers comes into focus in front of her an age later, her head snaps up and she looks at Bruce imploringly. “He’s stable,” Bruce says, tugging his glasses off his ears and wiping them carefully. “Things went as well as we could have hoped for – ”  
   
“Of course they did, I was directly involved,” Tony says, coming up behind him. Bruce puts his glasses back on and gives Tony a look. “Anyway,” he continues, “it’ll be a while before we can expect him to wake up, he needs a lot of rest after the surgery. You should get home, Natasha. Steve – all of you. You’re no use to him here. He’d want you to rest.”  
   
“Can I see him,” Natasha says, knowing the answer. Bruce puts an arm around her. “Come on. You’ll see him soon.”  
   
   
Soon turns out to be not less than four days, the third being the one on which Natasha does go back to the tower instead of spending the night in a room in the SHIELD facility. She huddles into herself in the middle of her bed, as tight as James had held her on that first night and with none of the same confliction she’d felt then.  
   
On the fourth day they let her go in to see him. She pushes the chair up to his bedside and watches him breathe into a mask, his hand clutched in both of hers, until she’s told she has to leave.  
   
On the fifth day she tells him that she’s both desperate and afraid for him to wake up.  
   
On the sixth day she hesitates to go in, because there’s no point if he doesn’t actually remember her.  
   
On the seventh day she doesn’t go in.  
   
On the eighth day Coulson gently but adamantly tells her they need to debrief her about the ambush. She goes with him and doesn’t see James that day either.   
   
On the ninth day Clint insists that she’ll want to be there if he wakes up, regardless of what may happen, and she grudgingly accepts to go and see him when Steve does. They stand side by side and watch him silently from the foot of the bed. The mask is gone and he’s breathing easy, but unmoving besides that.  
   
“Natasha,” Steve says softly. He hasn’t spoken to her much since this had all happened. She turns slightly towards him, and that encourages him to go on. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this,” he says. “If I could, I’d forego his memories of me so he could keep the ones he has of you."  
   
She shakes her head. “That is an incredibly pointless thing to say, Steve. None of this is even your fault.”  
   
“My fingers are crossed for you anyway,” he says.  
   
On the tenth day she goes in with Steve again, and they talk softly, exchanging stories about James. The more Steve tells her, the worse she feels about the possibility of James not regaining any of those memories.  
   
On the eleventh day she falls asleep with James’s hand in hers and her head against Steve’s shoulder. The attending nurse wakes her up when it’s time for them to leave. Natasha is halfway out the door when a hoarse cough stops her in her tracks, and a voice rough from disuse rasps out, “When did – you – get so – tall.”  
   
“Bucky, oh my God,” she hears Steve say, and amid the rustle that must be Steve taking him in his arms, she hurries out of the room.  
   
She collapses against a wall somewhere, she doesn’t know where exactly but far enough, and she’s overwhelmed with what is neither happiness nor sadness and is probably just love.  
   
   
Clint comes sprinting down the hall, calling her name. “Phil, he’s awake, but hold off for a minute okay?” he says into his comm as he comes to a halt in front of her and grabs her by the arm. To Natasha he says, “He’s asking about you.”  
   
She just kind of stares at him, and he says again, “James is asking about you, you knucklehead, come _on_ ,” and pulls her after him.  
   
They get back to the room and Steve ushers her inside, all but bouncing. She stares dazedly from him to James, who reaches for her saying _Natalia Talia darling love_ and his new arm crushes her to his chest with underestimated strength that she doesn’t mind in the least.  
   
   
James’s memory is far from fully restored, but he remembers the different parts of his life in snatches and more and more comes back to him each day. Tony immediately arranges for him to be transferred to the hospital care setup he’s incorporated into what he unveils as “Nat and Bucky’s floor,” back at the tower. It’s mostly for SHIELD’s pacification, as James refuses to spend any more nights in a hospital bed once he’s back on his feet. Jarvis keeps him monitored and Bruce and Tony make sure to run periodic tests and a lot of diagnostics on his new arm, over which Tony is positively gleeful and continually bubbling with new ideas. Natasha almost has to compete with him for time with James, when she isn’t doing so with Steve, whose joy at finally having his best friend back is rivaled only by James’s at the same.  
   
Nights, once James has been relinquished back to her, are quieter. So is James. He holds her and sometimes stares silently at nothing for a long while, and sometimes talks to her about the turmoil in his mind as he tries to reconcile the very separate parts of his life. “I was two different people,” he muses. “Two different, distinct – it would be so much easier if I only remembered one.” Then he pulls her closer and adds, “Not that I’d have it any other way.”  
   
Some nights he’s more aloof than that, and one night he tells her that he understands the conflict she’d felt when they’d first been reunited. “You’d become a different person, I get it.” It’s not what she wants to hear.  
   
   
She gives him space. He doesn’t quite blow off all of his appointments with the SHIELD therapist.  
   
   
Clint starts to hover, and when she won’t open up to him he proposes a trade.  
   
“If you’re going to offer to tell me about you and Coulson, too bad,” she says, and can’t conceal a hint of a smirk when he gapes at her. She reaches out with one finger to push his jaw back up. “Nothing escapes you, does it?” he says then. She shrugs. “Come on, how did you know?” he presses.  
   
Natasha looks away. “He listens to you,” she says softly. “Like when we first found James? I don’t believe he or Fury would have left the two of us alone for that long out of the kindness of their hearts, or let him move into the tower right away or any of it. But Fury listens to Coulson – and Coulson listens to you.”  
   
“Gee,” Clint says, a hint of a blush creeping up his neck. “You make it sound like I’m running SHIELD or something.” Natasha smiles. “Also you called him Phil that one time in the hospital.”  
   
“That’s his name,” Clint says defensively.   
   
“His first name is Agent,” she responds, and that makes him smile back even as he gives her a small shove. “You sound like Tony.” She shoves him back. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insult my dignity right there. And, Clint – ” she looks up at him. “Thank you.”  
   
   
James comes to bed late one night, having been up in the workshop with Tony, and Natasha is half-asleep when he presses up against her back and throws his arm loosely across her waist. When she wakes up gasping against the crushing steel hold later on, it takes an elbow to James’s gut for him to come out of his nightmare and let her go. They fall away from each other and sit up, heaving for breath, and James apologizes twelve times between gasps.  
   
She sits back at a distance from him and wipes the sweat off her brow, then slowly reaches over to do the same to him, even though he’s drenched in it. He breathes and stays still, not daring to reach for her.  
   
“If I were Steve, right now I’d be refusing to put you in any further danger by continuing to sleep in the same bed with you,” he says eventually.  
   
“You’re not a danger to me.”  
   
“Only because you can handle me.”  
   
“I can handle you. That doesn’t make you selfish.”  
   
“It does make me love you.”  
   
She closes the distance between them, sliding into the space between his knees and taking his head in her hands. He drops his forehead onto hers, sighing heavily.  
   
“Jarvis,” Natasha says.  
   
“Miss Romanov?”   
   
“I need you to monitor James’s sleep cycles. If he starts to go into a nightmare or a fit, you wake us up. Worst case, you wake up Clint.”  
   
“Or everyone,” James puts in. “Wake up everyone if necessary.”  
   
“I’ll take care of it sir, don’t you worry,” Jarvis assures him.  
   
“Thank you,” James breathes. Natasha lies back down and pulls him after her and asks about his nightmare, knowing it was about the Red Room because she’s had them too. He says that she was in it and that’s precisely what she’d hoped not to hear, because the worst of hers were always the ones that involved him.  
   
It makes them both sick to think about and they cling to one another the way they had in the darkness of his bunk a lifetime ago. What hurts more than anything is that James is only now starting the process of moving past all of it, something Natasha’s been trying to do for an age.  
   
It hurts to watch him struggle with this and to be reliving it through him – yet in a way, it’s also infinitely better because at least in this version, they haven’t lost one another. And days later, when they’re in a quinjet ready to come down on the elusive neo-KGB base SHIELD has tracked down thanks to the intel and hostages reaped from that fateful ambush attack, her strength comes from the steel grip of the hand that holds hers.  
 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should mention that Natasha calling him James instead of Bucky, even though that's what everyone else calls him, is something I liked/took from the comics, in case it felt weird to some people. 
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoyed it <3


End file.
